


The Clinch

by AHS



Category: Actor RPF, Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: M/M, Randy pov, my first G/R fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-24
Updated: 2007-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHS/pseuds/AHS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set early in 4th season filming.  Randy is unhappy with the Pink Posse story.  Gale cheers him up with a pseudo boxing lesson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Clinch

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I made this up.
> 
> Despite the timeline, I didn't see fit to mention Simon, because I didn't want to make it angsty. So I guess for purposes of this story he doesn't exist (unless you want him to).

“This storyline is just retarded.”

 _Pink Posse_. Oh my God. If I never heard those words again… or had to wear that godawful pink shirt and camouflage pants… it would be too soon. As it was, I would be doing scenes in them the next day, for another round of gay vigilante bullshit. Which is why I was hanging out with Gale… my costar and (most days) best friend… at his apartment, and he was listening to me bitch. Why I was sitting on his couch with my head in my hands, somewhere between childlike sulking and full-on queening out.

“What are Dan and Ron thinking?” I bemoaned, then laughed at myself. “Please. Why do I even ask that anymore?”

Gale sat down next to me, calmly setting two opened beer bottles on the coffee table. “I think it’ll play better than you think. You’re doing a great job with it so far. Besides, it’s only a few episodes.”

I gave him a withering look. “Don’t bullshit me, Gale. It doesn’t become you.”

Poor Gale sighed. “I’m not. Look, Randy, I didn’t say I liked it either.”

“Of course you like it! Why wouldn’t you? Brian comes off great! Worried, vulnerable, but still letting Justin make his own choices… Nevermind that they’re not anything Justin would ever actually choose! You know they‘re having him carry a gun next? A gun!”

“Well…” Gale took my outburst in stride, running his hand over his dark hair and shrugging. “I say just blame the bat to the head. Sure, it’s been years, but Justin’s got to still be a little scrambled.”

I smiled, genuinely, and bopped his head with a sofa pillow. “You said the same thing when Ethan happened.”

“You should be glad I made allowances for that, or I wouldn’t have taken your ass back,” said Gale, tickling my waist. He does that every now and then. No, tickling me he does a lot. (Fucking straight tease.) I mean speaking on behalf of Brian, as if to Justin. It can make me uncomfortable, but that’s probably mostly because I kind of get off on it.

“Sorry, Gale. I shouldn’t have come here complaining. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Before I could even pretend to stand up to leave, the reference to “hair” made him place his hand atop my newly shorn head… (argh, I’d even shaved off my downright pretty blond hair for this stupid show)… and slide it around.

“No, no, Baldy. You’re not going anywhere. If you’re going to be stuck doing this story, let’s make sure you do it right. I have a little training video for us to watch.”

“You like doing that, don’t you?” I’d only very recently gotten this haircut, and he must have rubbed my head about twenty times. The goosebumps it gave me when he did should be lessening any day now.

Gale felt up my buzz one more time. “Feels good,” he said simply. “Soft, like a baby chick, or… a velvet Elvis painting.”

I’d known him for more than three years, and he could still say things that made me spit out my drink.

“You are so weird,” I told him, as I always did, because he always was.

He wrapped his long fingers around my chin and wiped the excess beer from around my lips with his thumb. Apparently, there were no napkins (or paper towels or anything absorbent) in his place. I resisted the urge to suck his thumb into my mouth.

“Weird like people?” He winked, casually licking beer from his fingers, then seeming to think better of it and wiping his hands on his jeans.

Cute. _Queer As Folk_. I get it.

“No, just you. I’m afraid to know what you mean by training video.”

Gale hopped up and went to his shelf of DVDs, picking one out quickly and holding it up with pride.

“ _Rocky_?” I didn’t bother to hide the disinterest, or mild disdain, in my voice.

“I believe I recall you saying on the set one time that you’d never seen it. Rand, say it isn’t so.”

“I’m not really a Sylvester Stallone fan.” Yes, I could be a snob.

“Mm hmm. What movies of his have you even seen?”

“Uh…” I chewed my lip, thinking. “ _Demolition Man_ … that one where Estelle Getty was his mom… and _Rambo_.“

“You saw _Rambo_?” Gale seemed to find this particularly unlikely. He did know me well.

“I could have,” I informed him, haughtily. “But, now that I think about it, no. I could just tell that one was stupid… from the box.”

Gale… well, he was laughing at me now. Literally, his shoulders were shaking and his fist was pressed to his mouth.

“What‘s so funny?” I looked around for something to fling at his head.

“For crying out loud, Rand,” he said once he’d taken his hand away. “Nevermind that you’re an actor. Just as a human being who inhabits this Earth, you should be ashamed.” He put the disc in the DVD player and came to sit next to me again. “Besides, this week you’ve got the _Justin learns to throw a punch_ scene, in a boxing ring no less, and later we’ve got the Brian/Justin… nekkid wrassling cockfight, so this will help us both get ready.”

Spending the next couple of hours watching a movie with Gale was more than okay with me, so I gave in. He stretched his long legs out along the couch, across my lap at first. I shifted so that his legs laid under mine, my knees up and feet resting on the edge of the couch cushion, legs folded over his. I smelled Gale’s favorite hobby before I saw it. I turned down my own joint when he offered, but I reached out and happily took a pull off his.

“So… you’re the one who needs to learn to fight?” I puffed, teasing.

“Nope,” he grinned lazily. “Maybe you don’t either? You seem pretty scrappy to me.”

“I did hit a guy once. Back in college. And, no, not as part of a stage combat class.”

“Yeah?“ Gale looked impressed. “What’d he do to piss you off that bad?”

I could tell he was expecting me to say the guy had hurled various homophobic slurs my way, but please, I got used to those young. “I think he said theatre was dead.”

“Poor, stupid dude. I bet you bloodied his nose and then gave him tickets to your next play.“

“I did!” I giggled (which I tried not to do when I wasn‘t Justin, but sometimes, around Gale, it couldn‘t be helped). “How did you know?”

“I know you. Anyway, I thought a little fighting refresher course couldn’t hurt.” He paused. “Or maybe I just wanted to show you the incredible love story of Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed.”

“Huh?” His face was inscrutable, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was fucking with me. “Isn’t that the other boxer? What about, you know… ‘Yo, Adrian!’… Isn’t that his wife?”

“Yeah. They’re nice. But Rocky and Apollo are hot.”

“You don’t have to put a gay love story in a movie for me to like it, dumbass.”

“Would you shut up and watch? Shhh.”

So, I shut up, and Gale showed me the first Sylvester Stallone movie I ever liked. I guess I hadn’t known, or I’d forgotten, that it won the Best Picture Oscar. And that Stallone had been nominated both for acting and writing the thing. Mentally, I offered Sly a little apology, and prepared for Mr. Harold to gloat, as I kicked back and enjoyed the story.

Around the time the climactic fight at the end was starting to happen, Gale nudged me with his shoulder.

“You are not seriously falling asleep. This is the best part.”

“I’m awake. I promise.”

I actually was not falling asleep. But I may have closed my eyes for a second or two, just because I was so damn comfortable. Somewhere along the course of the movie, our positions had shifted again. Well, mine had. I’d ended up curled against Gale’s side, wedged between his body and the back of the couch. My head rested on his shoulder and one of my legs twisted over his. His hand encircled my wrist, which gave credence to my mind’s insistence that he had in fact pulled me down to lie like that. Gale was always so warm and smelled so nice (and I was never sure how, because it certainly wasn’t the smell of pot I liked)… and I just never got to enjoy the closeness in this relaxed a way at work, and I didn’t want to move…

“Okay, Rand. Move your ass.”

“What?” Crap. Next thing I know, he’s getting up and pulling me up with him. “What are we doing? I was watching the movie.”

“We still are. But now I’m making it… interactive.”

“Sounds dangerous, considering the subject matter.”

“Just trust me. Like I trust you.” He walked me to the clear space of floor right in front of the TV and stood in front of me. He gestured to the screen and the two men in the boxing ring pictured there. “That’s us.”

“Yeah? Which one am I?”

“You’re Rocky.”

“Damn,” I pretended to pout. “I always wanted to be a 200-pound black man.”

“You hold onto that dream.” He puffed out his chest and flexed his biceps. He was being silly, but he looked _good_. All that long, lean muscle. “But for now… hit me.”

“What? I‘m not going to hit you, Gale.”

“Apollo. C’mon. Just like that.”

I followed his eyes to the movie, where Rocky and Apollo were literally beating the spit out of each other… some blood and bone, too. I tilted my head at Gale in a _‘Yeah right’_ expression.

“Okay, maybe not just like that. Just hit me, Rand. Are you afraid you’re gonna hurt me or afraid for me to know you hit like a girl?”

“I do hit like a girl. But a very large, very butch girl,” I threatened, trying not to laugh. “Okay, fine. You’re so fucking tall. How am I supposed to…?” I looked at my arms and decided they were long enough to reach his face. Did he want me to warn him? I made a fist and jumped from foot to foot a couple times. “One, two…” On a silent ‘three,’ I held my breath and punched in Gale’s general direction.

“Whoa,” I heard him say, as he bobbed or weaved, whichever it is, out of the way.

“Oh good! You ducked!” I shouted in relief.

“Damn right, I ducked. Cindy will kill me in makeup tomorrow if I show up with a shiner. I tell her you did it, she’ll kill you, too,” he laughed. “That was good form, though, Rand.”

“I get that compliment a lot,” I vamped.

He made a show of eyeing me, up and down, before saying, “I bet,” and I just laughed. (Fucking straight _tease_.) He turned back to the movie for a minute, then said, “Hit me again.”

Sure, no problem. I throw the punch. Gale moves out of the way. It’s a good system.

Except that when I tried it the second time, he got distracted by something on the screen and forgot to duck. Luckily, I realized this as my fist was in transit. Not soon enough to stop it, but enough to slow it down. Make my butch girl punch more femme. Still, I felt so bad when my knuckles grazed Gale’s jaw.

“Shit! I’m so sorry!”

He wobbled backwards for a second, because he hadn’t been expecting it, but mostly it just woke him up. He massaged his jaw, moving it around, but he was fine.

“Good one, Rand. And that’s enough practice for you.”

“Well, asshole, the next time you make someone hit you, you better damn well move out of the fucking way!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Balboa.”

I was already digging in his freezer, getting him an ice pack for his jaw, just in case. Cindy (The Makeup Lady) was a sweet woman, but she could be scary.

“What the hell had you so captivated, anyway?”

I walked up behind him, lightly pressing the ice pack to his face until he took hold of it himself. He was staring at the TV again. Rocky and Apollo were pushed against the ropes, half-fighting, half-embracing. They stayed entangled like that until the referee broke them apart.

“Wow,” I said. “I know that happens all the time in boxing, but it just makes me want to yell, ‘Fuck already!’ Good thing I’m not a boxing fan, huh?”

“Yeah.“ He cleared his throat. “It’s called a _clinch_.”

“Ah, I see. Like when the tabloids go on about so-and-so famous person ‘caught in a clinch’ with the children’s nanny, and we’ve got the torrid video footage… How do the boxers even end up in that position? I say they just like rubbing up against each other all sweaty. They’re all gay and repressed. Probably why they got into boxing in the first place.”

“Let’s see.” 

 _Let’s_ _see_ what? I _think_ he meant, let’s see how the boxers end up in that position, but now I was the one distracted. I swear, in the time it took me to blink, Gale’s shirt was off. Which, of course, was no kind of big deal, because I see him in much less all the time at work. (Plus I’m usually naked too and we’re licking body parts and grinding and… yeah.) Except that we weren’t at work and nobody told him to do that. And he was looking at me like he expected me to do the same. Um, okay. I pulled my shirt off quickly and threw it on the couch, with a curious grin.

“Now, put your fists up and come at me,” he instructed.

“You are a freak,” I told him, but I did it. I’m not really sure what happened then. I think I threw a faux punch or two towards his midsection, but purposely only hitting the air. Then Gale started coming at me… not punching at all, just taking over my body space and pushing me back. Next thing I know, his breakfast bar is digging into my back, my fists are trapped against his chest, and his arms are wrapped roughly around me. I felt the damp slide of my nipples over his ribcage and absently wondered which of us was sweating. His hazel eyes pinned me from the six or so inches of height Gale had on me, and the top of his right thigh was molded to my crotch.

“Right,” I coughed. “Well, now I know. It happens… absolutely naturally.” Naturally, like the hard-on I was desperately hoping he wouldn’t notice (but would be a little insulted if he didn‘t).

Whether he did or didn’t, Gale took a step back, looking a tad off-balance. Then he smiled too brightly, called me “tough guy,” and asked if I wanted another beer. I don’t think I answered, but he brought me one, anyway.

“The movie’s over,” he commented, taking a long swig.

Sure enough, the fight had ended. “Wait, split decision? Apollo- Didn’t Rocky win?”

“Nope. He loses the first one. Probably why it’s considered the best of the Rocky movies.”

“So you made me the loser? That’s nice, Gale.”

“He only loses technically. He should have won. But that’s not the point. He had the heart of a champion, everybody loved him, and he got a bunch more movies made about him.”

“I guess that‘s okay then.” I’d been worried Gale was distancing himself from me since… the clinch… but he’d eased back close enough to rub my head again. Which contributed to keeping me hard, but also meant we were okay. “I’m not sold on the Rocky/Apollo love saga, though.”

He smiled. “Ah, well… You’ve got to hold on for a couple of sequels to really get that. By the third one, they’re like best friends. And they…”

“Inspire each other? Give each other strength?”

“Yeah.”

“I get that.” Looking in Gale’s eyes, I totally did. There was silence for a minute… even the movie, now a blue screen… and I filled it by kissing the pad of my index finger and touching it to his jaw. There was only, maybe, the slightest bruising appearing. “I think you’ll live.”

He took my hand from his face, squeezing it. “It’s getting late. You should stay here.” It was decided without discussion, and he ran to get me a blanket and extra pillow and laid them on the couch I was pretty familiar with.

“Thanks. And thanks for getting my mind off of… ugh… this.” I picked up a script off the coffee table.

“You’re welcome,“ he said quietly. Even though it was now my bed, Gale sat on the couch, curled up next to me, wrapping the blanket around us both. “You know what I think is stupid about this story?”

“Besides everything? What?”

“This guy Cody. He’s so crazy focused on killing all the straight people, he barely even tries to fuck you. What’s his problem?”

“Hmm. Maybe he’s secretly straight,” I hypothesized. “You know, like Chris Hobbs became a basher because he was secretly gay and in love with me and couldn’t handle it? Maybe Cody’s a closeted hetero and that’s why he’s so angry.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“No excuse for what?”

“Being straight is no excuse not to fuck you. Not a good one, anyway.”

Okay, I knew that didn‘t mean what it sounded like it meant coming out of Gale‘s mouth. I knew he wasn‘t talking about… “Um… are you talking about Justin or me? For a second, I thought… Stop being Brian, okay? It’s… confusing.”

He shook his head slowly. “Not Brian. Oh, he thinks Randy’s hot, but he doesn’t love him like Gale does.”

Whether we were just doing our usual affectionate friends thing, or there was something more finally bubbling to the surface, I had to ask. “And how does Gale love Randy?”

And then he kissed me. At first, it was like a hundred kisses before… not platonic, exactly, but our version of platonic. It was a warm press of lips and nothing more. Except that it didn‘t end. Except that Gale had slid a hand onto my thigh. And, as his other hand found the back of my head, I felt his tongue coax my mouth open with minimal persuasion.

From there, I was just lost… in a blur of heat and wet and sweet and sweat and world turning upside down and being held in place by the fingernails digging into my skin and closer and climbing into laps and teeth and taste and I don’t know what’s going on but I like it so much… until we dared breathe.

Foreheads together. Sharp gusts of air expelling from our lungs. Still touching, everywhere. “What… what were you saying… about being straight?”

Gale gripped my ass, both casual and full of need, and spoke against my lips. “Not a good enough excuse anymore not to fuck the gorgeousness that is my best friend. I mean… if you want…”

This was not a dream. This was not a hallucination. This was not a joke. He’d only had two beers (and, for Gale, a very negligible amount of pot), so I was pretty sure this wasn’t even drunken experimentation. Gale’s cock was hard as hell through his jeans, against my hip. He wanted me. Fuck, three plus years, and _Rocky_ is what finally gets us there? If I’d known that, I would have watched it with him first season.

“Well… we do have some _‘nekkid wrassling’_ to rehearse,“ I whispered, with a wicked smile. “Let’s work on it in your bedroom.” As we pulled each other up, I grabbed the fallen script and threw it across the room. “And we won’t need this.” Gale practically chased me down the hall.

Fucking straight tease no longer.  



End file.
